The select fire MP5, first released in 1966, would be the go-to submachine gun for special operations units, first in Germany before the gun found its way into other arsenals as a close quarters fighting tool and into the hands of Hollywood action stars in the 1980s and 90s.
Rock Island Auction Company will have several examples of this larger-than-life gun in its May 2-4 Premier Auction in Bedford, Texas that include a fully-transferable and factory original MP5A3, a compact MP5K, a U.S. Navy variant and a suppressed MP5S.
MP5: In the Beginning
Heckler & Koch arose from the industrial debris of Germany after World War 2, named after two former Mauser engineers who founded the company, Edmund Heckler and Theodor Koch. The company first operated as a machine tool plant before responding to a proposal for an infantry rifle for the West German military. HK submitted what would become the G3 battle rifle when it was adopted in 1959 and would serve the German military into the 1990s. Heckler & Koch was in the firearms business.
The G3’s lineage and — ultimately the MP5’s — could be traced back to World War 2 and the German StG 45 and its delayed recoil system that was pioneered by Ferdinand Mannlicher in the 1890s. Engineers at Mauser experimented with the Sturmgewher 45’s prototype, the Gerat 6, and utilized a closed bolt, roller-delayed recoil system with a fixed barrel. This recoil system uses rollers on each side of the bolt to pause the action until the gas pressure eases slightly before cycling the extraction, ejection and reloading.
A gun with a delayed recoil system can be more lightweight than a direct blowback system with a heavy bolt, also making it more accurate because the delayed system has less felt recoil and creates less muzzle rise.
HK continued to design guns utilizing the delayed recoil system including the HK54, a select fire submachine gun that fired 9mm pistol rounds. The HK54 was a sized-down version of the G3 that took a trio of engineers – Tilo Moller, Manfred Guhring and Halmut Baureuter — two years to design. The gun would be renamed the MP5, or Maschinenpistole 5, when it was adopted by the West German border police in the late 1960s.
Heckler & Koch on its website calls the MP5 “the world’s most popular submachine gun” and lists 120 variants of the gun based on modular options like barrel length, buttstock, trigger group, sight mounts, magazines and other accessories.
MP5 as a Police Gun
Police and military watched the rise of terrorism in the 1970s and looked for the tools to fight it when confronted. Battle rifles were too bulky for close-in work, so military and police experts returned to smgs for what they could offer in close quarter confrontations — a sufficiently lethal 9mm round but not so powerful as to minimize passing through walls or bulkheads. The MP5 first went to the West German Border Police before landing in Special Forces arsenals, including Germany’s GSG-9.
In a sea of tubular, open bolt submachine guns, the MP5 and its closed bolt provided better reliability and accuracy over guns like the Uzi and MAC-10. Writer James Marchington described the MP5 as being in “a class of its own” by firing pistol rounds while serving as a select-fire carbine.
The FBI requested a 10mm version from HK with a threaded muzzle and flapper magazine release, the MP5/10, in the 1980s for its Hostage Rescue Team. A suppressed version, the MP5SD was introduced in 1974 and two years later the compact MP5K was developed. The K stands for the German “kurz,” translating to “short.” It has a barrel length of 4.5 to 5.8 inches while the MP5A3’s barrel is 8.9 inches.
MP5 and Lufthansa Flight 181
On Oct. 13, 1977 Lufthansa Flight 181 took off from the Spanish island of Mallorca. The Boeing 737, dubbed the Landshut, carried 90 passengers and five crew members bound for Frankfurt, Germany. Four militants from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked the plane. The pilot was instructed to fly to Cyprus, first stopping in Rome for fuel. The hijackers’ demands included $15 million and the release of 10 Red Army Faction prisoners and two Palestinians. The Red Army Faction (RAF) was a far-left West German militant group that at one time included the MP5 in its logo.
The Lufthansa plane made a number of stops in the Middle East and Africa, including a stop in Yemen where the pilot was fatally shot, before landing at Mogadishu, Somalia on Oct. 17. German commandos of the Grenzschutzguppe 9 (GSG-9), the German national police anti-terrorism unit, arrived a few hours later. Operation Fire Magic was a go.
In the early morning hours of Oct. 18 after starting a small fire on the runway as a distraction, the commandos, armed with MP5 submachine guns, stormed the plane through the emergency exits. With warnings to passengers to get down, the commandos filled the cabin with lead from their submachine guns, killing three of the four hijackers and slightly wounding three passengers and a flight attendant.
MP5 Achieves Icon Status
On April 30, 1980, six members of the Democratic Revolution Front for the Liberation of Arabistan armed with pistols, submachine guns and hand grenades stormed the Iranian embassy in London, taking 26 hostages and demanding the release of 91 prisoners in Iran and safe passage out of the country or else they would blow up the building.
Police and media were quickly on the scene and the situation devolved into a siege. Two teams from the British Air Service, an anti-terrorism special operations unit of the British Army were dispatched to a nearby holding area. They were armed with Browning High Power pistols, MP5 submachine guns, stun grenades, tear gas and explosives.
The hostage situation went on for six days though five hostages were released. The British installed listening devices. The SAS and police learned the front door was steel reinforced and windows on the first two floors were armored glass. A plan to enter the building another way had to be considered. Following the shooting death of the embassy’s press officer on the sixth day, SAS officials warned the government that up to 40 percent of the hostages would die in an assault, code name Operation Nimrod.
On the last day of the standoff, SAS soldiers repelled down the building but one of the soldiers was tangled in the lines as the soldiers attempted entry. Forced to improvise, the soldiers, brandishing their MP5s, smashed their way into the building on live television and began firing. During an intense 17 minute firefight 19 hostages were rescued. All but one terrorist was killed. One hostage was killed by the terrorists during the gun battle.
MP5 at the Movies
When John McClane got a machine gun at the Nakatomi Plaza Christmas Eve party, it was an MP5. He was so pleased he let Hans Gruber’s men know, writing “Ho, ho, ho, now I have a machine gun,” written on the sweatshirt of the dead bad guy he got it from. (Actually, MP5s in that movie were Heckler & Koch HK94s converted to appear as MP5s, but still…)
The various models of the MP5 have long been film stalwarts, with an MP5A3 first appearing in 1970’s West German television movie, “The Millions Game,” that had a plot similar to Arnold Schwartzenegger’s “The Running Man.” Speaking of Schwartzenegger, he is among the action stars and henchmen that have held the MP5, including Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, Keanu Reeves and Vin Diesel.
The MP5 has been around long enough to have appeared in several film series, like “Die Hard,” “The Matrix,” “John Wick” and “The Fast & the Furious.” The MP5 and the HK94 converted to look like the submachine gun, have lengthy lists of credits for film, television and video games at IMFDB.com.
In the film “Black Hawk Down,” pilot Mike Durant, portrayed by Ron Eldard, is shown wielding an MP5A3 after his helicopter, “Super 64,” is shot down. In truth, Durant used a short-barreled MP5K that was issued to pilots for personal defense for a short time. The initiative lasted only a short time after determining that the 9mm ammunition didn’t have the stopping power needed against enemies wearing body armor or are drug crazed.
MP5 for Sale
A factory original MP5A3 is a truly rare offering and the fact that this one was recently reclassified to be fully transferable makes it nearly a unicorn. The MP5K-N is a compact version of the gun with a 4.5-inch barrel, a trigger group that includes a two-round burst and three-lug muzzle for mounting a suppressor. MP5 offerings that may’ve started life as a semi-auto but now host an auto sear are very collectible and fun to shoot.
One of the most recognizable and successful submachine guns of the post-World War 2 era, the MP5 is a reliable, accurate and collectible firearm, and Rock Island Auction Company will have several variants, including a factory original MP5A3, a suppressed model, a U.S. Navy variant and a compact model in the May 2-4 Premier Auction in Bedford, Texas.
Sources:
“Handguns Semi-Automatic Pistols & Revolvers and Sub-Machine Guns,” by James Marchington
“Heckler & Koch MP5: The Submachine Gun That Can Do Everything?” By Peter Suciu, 1945
“Heckler & Koch MP5: A Pop Culture SMG Icon,” by Travis Pike, Pew Pew Tactical
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